The Blubber

RenTech, a hedgefund, bought 1 million GameStop, $GME, shares at the end of March.


Renaissance Technologies held 1 million shares of the video-game retailer at the end of March, valued at $13 million, according to its first-quarter portfolio update.

GameStop's stock surged over 400% at its peak on Tuesday, briefly valuing RenTech's stake at $65 million if still held. The stock has since retreated to about $33 on Wednesday, still leaving the company worth over $10 billion.

RenTech relies on algorithms to make many of its trades, leading to significant changes in its stock portfolio each quarter. Founded by Jim Simons, the renowned MIT math professor and Cold War codebreaker who passed away on Friday.

The quant fund made several other notable changes to its holdings last quarter.

It reduced its Nvidia stake by nearly two-thirds, from about 1.5 million shares to 551,000 shares, lowering the position's value from about $767 million to below $500 million.

Additionally, Rentech decreased its Tesla stake from 2.6 million shares worth $635 million to 1.8 million shares valued at $316 million. It also increased its investment in another meme stock: AMC Entertainment. The fund raised its bet on the theater chain from 4.9 million shares worth about $30 million in December to 8.7 million shares in March, valued at $60 million at Tuesday's close.

The total value of the firm's stock portfolio remained relatively flat at about $64 billion. Its top three holdings at the end of March were Novo-Nordisk, Palantir, and Meta. Uber and Nvidia were its second- and third-largest positions three months earlier.

It's important to note that quarterly portfolio updates offer only a snapshot of a firm's holdings on a specific date, excluding shares sold short, private investments, and overseas bets.